Known by locals as Thailand’s Switzerland, Doi Tung (‘Flag Mountain') is an attractive mountain-top destination of forests and nearby Shan, Akha and Lahu tribal villages. Probably the most important attraction in the area is Wat Phrathat Doi Tung – a temple built one thousand years ago which is an important place of pilgrimage for Buddhists from Thailand and overseas. A giant flag was flown from the point where the temple’s chedis were built giving 'flag mountain' its name. Doi Tung is also home to the Doi Tung Development Project, an initiative of Her Royal Highness Srinakarindra the Princess Mother (mother of Thailand’s current monarch) who passed away in 1995.
Doi Tung has traditionally been an area at the centre of Thailand’s opium production, and with a ready supply of the drug in the area, drug use was prevalent, especially amongst the poor. The Princess Mother built a summer palace in the area and initiated the Doi Tung Development Project.
The purpose behind the project was to establish means of overcoming the area’s social problems through education, training, and through “Sustainable Alternative Development” such as changes in agriculture (an Agricultural Training Centre was set up to help people change from opium production to growing crops such as coffee, strawberries and macadamia nuts) and the introduction of trade in such items as local handicrafts (a ‘Cottage Industry Centre’ was also set up alongside an outlet for locally produced goods and to ensure local crafts such as hand carpet manufacturing are passed on to future generations.
The Princess Mother’s palace has been maintained exactly as it was when she stayed there. The grounds of the palace (Mae Fa Luang Garden) are extremely well kept and certainly warrant a visit. Visits to the Doi Tung Development Project’s various activities are also possible.
A trip to Doi Tung is often combined with a visit to Mai Sai. Probably the biggest draw to the region is its scenery. A trip through the mountains to Doi Tung is simply glorious. Hiking here is possible, but you should always arrange a guide – drug production does still exist and the Mong Thai Army and Karen Rebels are occasionally active in the area.
How to get there: The palace is located at kilometre 12 of route 1149. Given the distances to be covered and the fact a motor vehicle is essential to a trip to Doi Tung, an organised tour to the site is recommended.
Contact: Doi Tung Development Project (053) 767-003, (053) 767-015-7
The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean in which a number of aircraft and surface vessels are alleged to have mysteriously disappeared and cannot be explained as human error, piracy, equipment failure, or natural disasters. Popular culture has attributed some of these disappearances to the paranormal, a suspension of the laws of physics, or activity by extraterrestrial beings.
substantial body of documentation reveals, however, that a significant portion of the allegedly mysterious incidents have been inaccurately reported or embellished by later authors, and numerous official agencies have stated that the number and nature of disappearances in the region is similar to any other area of ocean.
Bermuda-Triangle.Org is the web site of Gian J. Quasar. It originally began in 1999 as his massive database on the Bermuda Triangle until the publication of his book, Into the Bermuda Triangle. Now it is also the personal website of the author, not only containing the Bermuda Triangle database but keeping everyone updated on his several other books, events and projects. Gian’s work has been the basis of over a dozen major documentaries and has helped inspire a Congressional Resolution.
To follow countering the BBC’s “new solution” see the Message Board thread here and the complete report on Star Tiger (PDF) and the complete report on Star Ariel (PDF) or this website’s page on the Tudors here and the biography on Star Ariel’s pilot, JC McPhee here.
It is very disappointing to see the BBC trying this transparent spin. The type of information they’re touting as new and a revelation has been on this site for about 9 years. It doesn’t solve anything unfortunately.
The Bermuda Triangle (sometimes also referred to as the Devil's Triangle) is a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean bordered by a line from Florida to the islands of Bermuda, to Puerto Rico and then back to Florida. It is one of the biggest mysteries of our time - that perhaps isn't really a mystery.
The term "Bermuda Triangle" was first used in an article written by Vincent H. Gaddis for Argosy magazine in 1964. In the article, Gaddis claimed that in this strange sea a number of ships and planes had disappeared without explanation. Gaddis wasn't the first one to come to this conclusion, either. As early as 1952, George X. Sands, in a report in Fate magazine, noted what seemed like an unusually large number of strange accidents in that region.
In 1969 John Wallace Spencer wrote a book called Limbo of the Lost specifically about the Triangle and, two years later, a feature documentary on the subject, The Devil's Triangle, was released. These, along with the bestseller The Bermuda Triangle, published in 1974, permanently registered the legend of the "Hoodoo Sea" within popular culture.
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Why do ships and planes seem to go missing in the region? Some authors suggested it may be due to a strange magnetic anomaly that affects compass readings (in fact they claim Columbus noted this when he sailed through the area in 1492). Others theorize that methane eruptions from the ocean floor may suddenly be turning the sea into a froth that can't support a ship's weight so it sinks (though there is no evidence of this type of thing happening in the Triangle for the past 15,000 years). Several books have gone as far as conjecturing that the disappearances are due to an intelligent, technologically advanced race living in space or under the sea.
In 1975 Larry Kusche, a librarian at Arizona State University, reached a totally different conclusion. Kusche decided to investigate the claims made by these articles and books. What he found he published in his own book entitled The Bermuda Triangle Mystery-Solved. Kusche had carefully dug into records other writers had neglected. He found that many of the strange accidents were not so strange after all. Often a Triangle writer had noted a ship or plane had disappeared in "calms seas" when the record showed a raging storm had been in progress. Others said ships had "mysteriously vanished" when their remains had actually been found and the cause of their sinking explained. In one case a ship listed missing in the Triangle actually had disappeared in the Pacific Ocean some 3,000 miles away! The author had confused the name of the Pacific port the ship had left with a city of the same name on the Atlantic coast.
More significantly, a check of Lloyd's of London's accident records by the editor of Fate in 1975 showed that the Trianglewas no more dangerous than any other part of the ocean. U.S. Coast Guard records confirmed this and since that time no good arguments have ever been made to refute those statistics. So many argue that the Bermuda Triangle mystery has disappeared, in the same way many of its supposed victims vanished.
More significantly, a check of Lloyd's of London's accident records by the editor of Fate in 1975 showed that the Trianglewas no more dangerous than any other part of the ocean. U.S. Coast Guard records confirmed this and since that time no good arguments have ever been made to refute those statistics. So many argue that the Bermuda Triangle mystery has disappeared, in the same way many of its supposed victims vanished.
One of the first stories connected to the Triangle legend and the most famous ship lost in the region was the USS Cyclops which disappeared in 1918. The 542 foot long Cyclops was launched in 1910 and served as a collier ( a ship that carries coal) for the U.S. Navy during World War I. The vessel was on its way from Bahia, Salvador, to Baltimore, Maryland, but never arrived. After it had made an unscheduled stop at Barbados on March 3rd and 4th to take on additional supplies, it disappeared without a trace. No wreckage from the ship was ever found and no distress signal was received. The deaths of the 306 crew and passengers of the USS Cyclops remains the single largest loss of life in U.S. Naval history not directly involving combat.
While the sinking of the Cyclops remains a mystery, the incident could have happened anywhere between Barbados and Baltimore, not necessarily in the Bermuda Triangle. Proponents of the Bermuda Triangle theory point to the lack of a distress call as evidence of a paranormal end for the vessel, but the truth is that wireless communications in 1918 were unreliable and it would not have been unusual for a rapidly-sinking vessel to not have had a chance to send a successful distress call before going under.
The SS Marine Sulphur Queen, a tanker ship carrying molten sulphur, disappeared off the southern coast of Florida in 1963. The crew of 39 was all lost and no wreckage from the tanker was ever found. While the disappearance of the ship is mentioned in several books about the Triangle, authors don't always include that the Coast Guard concluded that the vessel was in deplorable shape and should have never gone to sea at all. Fires erupted with regularity on the ship. Also, this class of vessel was known to have a "weak back", which means the keel would split when weakened by corrosion causing the ship to break in two. The ship's structure had been further compromised by a conversion from its original mission as an oil tanker to carrying molten sulphur. The conversion had left the vessel with an extremely high center of gravity, increasing the chance that it would capsize. The SS Marine Sulphur Queen was all-in-all a disaster waiting to happen and it seems unfair to blame its demise on the Bermuda Triangle.
Missing Avengers become the Triangle's "Lost Squadron"
So how did this tragedy turn into a Bermuda Triangle mystery? The Navy's original investigation concluded the accident had been caused by Taylor's navigational confusion. According to those that knew him he was a good pilot, but often navigated "flying by the seat of his pants" and had gotten lost in the past. Taylor's mother refused to accept that and finally got the Navy to change the report to read that the disaster was for "causes or reasons unknown." This may have spared the woman's feelings, but blurred the actual facts.
The saga of Flight 19 is probably the most repeated story about the Bermuda Triangle. Vincent Gaddis put the tale into the same Argosy magazine article where he coined the term "Bermuda Triangle" in 1964 and thetwo have been connected ever since. The planes and their pilots even found their way into the science fiction film classic, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Where is Flight 19 now? Well, in 1991 five Avengers were found in 750 feet of water off the coast of Florida by the salvage ship Deep Sea. Examination of the plane's ID numbers, however, showed that they were not from Flight 19 (as many as 139 Avengers were thought to have gone into the water off the coast of Florida during the war). It seems the final resting place of the lost squadron and their crews is still a real Bermuda Triangle mystery.
Phu Chee Fah, Chiang Rai, is one of the popular places to see Sunrise. A chilly night, a 700-meter walk at 4.30am, a sitting against the wind, all just for the morning sunrise at Phu Chee Fah.
The stunning viewpoint of Phu Chee Fah has been long popular with Thai tourists, but remains little known amongst western travellers. On a clear morning, the views out and over a vast stretch of mist swathed Laos, are absolutely breathtaking.
Set in a remote part of the Thai-Lao border in eastern Chiang Rai province, the view from the summit of 1,628m stretches over a vast stretch of Sainyabuli province in Laos. The view is best at dawn on a clear day, when the valley below fills with mist -- November to February is considered the best time of the year to visit.
There are a bunch of guesthouses and camping is also available, but the difficult part is getting here -- you really need your own transport -- either motorbike or car -- to reach Phu Chee Fah.
Phu Chee Fah can be approached from Wiang Kaen in the north or Thoeng in the south, with the latter being the more popular route taken.
If you choose to approach from Wiang Kaen, expect some stunning mountain scenery and some moderately challenging road conditions. Also, if you choose this route, the more northern viewpoint of Doi Patang is also worth visiting.
If travelling by motorcycle, you're best to do this route with others as if you have a problem with your bike you could be stranded for a long time -- very little traffic uses this road -- though it is about 95% sealed.
There are three areas around Phu Chee Fah with guesthouses, one about 2km north of the final turnoff to the summit a second solitary guesthouse about 1.5km north of the turnoff and the other about 500m south of the final turnoff.
On weekends most places are open, but midweek, many are closed and food opportunities may be limited. From the turn-off it is another km to the parking area, then a 700m hike to the summit.
You can reach Phu Chee Fah by motorbike from either Chiang Rai or Chiang Khong, with both trips taking around 3-4 hours. For those with their own transport, an overnight visit to Phu Chee Fah is highly recommended.
Wat Rong Khun (Thai: วัดร่องขุ่น) is a contemporary unconventional buddhist and hindu temple in Chiang Rai, Thailand. It was designed by Chalermchai Kositpipat. Construction began in 1998 and is expected to end in 2008.
Wat Rong Khun is very different to any of temple you are likely to see in Thailand. A lifetime project of artist Chalermchai Kositpipat, the temple has a fine blend of traditional Buddhist art with contemporary themes. The temple is almost entirely white – no other colours are used at all. It is though decorated with small pieces of mirrored glass which add substantially to the temple’s spacious and airy feel. Designed to be viewed in moonlight, if you can manage to get there when the moon is out it’s worth the effort – very nice indeed. This temple is certainly worth a visit unless you have limited time.
Wat Rong Khun is different from any other temple in Thailand, as its ubosot (Pali: uposatha; consecrated assembly hall) is designed in white color with some use of white glass. The white color stands for Lord Buddha’s purity; the white glass stands for Lord Buddha’s wisdom that "shines brightly all over the Earth and the Universe."
The bridge leading to the temple represents the crossing over from the cycle of rebirth to the Abode of Buddha. The small semicircle before the bridge stands for the human world. The big circle with fangs is the mouth of Rahu, meaning impurities in the mind, a representation of hell or suffering.
All the paintings inside the ubosot (assembly hall) have golden tones. The four walls, ceiling and floor contain paintings showing an escape from the defilements of temptation to reach a supramundane state. On the roof, there are four kinds of animals representing earth, water, wind and fire. The elephant stands for the earth; the naga stands for water; the swan's wings represent wind; and the lion’s mane represents fire.
In 1977, Chalermchai Kositpipat volunteered his service to carry out the construction of the ubosot at his own expense as an offering to Lord Buddha, but he later altered the plan as he saw fit in such a way that Wat Rong Khun developed into a prominent site attracting both Thai and foreign visitors.
Nowadays, Wat Rong Khun is still being constructed. When completed, the construction project of Wat Rong Khun will consist of nine buildings: the ubosot, the hall containing Lord Buddha’s relics, the hall containing Buddha images, the preaching hall, the contemplation hall, the monk’s cell, the door façade of the Buddhavasa, the art gallery, and the toilets.
